Study shows antibiotic class can affect apoptosis

By Anette BreindlScience editor

Friday, March 14, 2014

Researchers may have discovered why a certain antibiotic class can be highly toxic, and a pathway toward making it less so, while looking for something different altogether. The findings reveal an unexpected effect of quinolones on pannexins, a group of channels that cells use, among other things, to signal their impending demise in the hopes of attracting clean-up crews. “My lab is interested in how cell clearance takes place,” Kodi Ravichandran told BioWorld Today. Ravichandran is at the University of Virginia and the corresponding author of the paper describing the findings, which were published in the March 13, 2014, issue of Nature.